It Takes A Village
by jareaujareau
Summary: Emily Prentiss returns, but the team is in for a few more surprises than they could've ever expected.
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N: Disclaimer: The majority of the dialogue was not written by me, but written by Criminal Minds writers. I don't own CM, but I wish I did. ;)_**

* * *

 _"Hey, got your message."_

 _"It's time."_

 _"Why? Morgan might be able to break Doyle without her."_

 _"Declan tried to make a call, she's on the way."_

 _"Alright."_

 _"I'll get Morgan."_

 _"I'll tell the others."_

The past few months had been absolutely ridiculous. They had been full of hard work and determination. Derek and Penelope had focused their efforts on finding Ian Doyle, the man that had killed their friend and teammate. They had find Doyle's son, Declan, and this led them to finally finding Doyle himself.

They let Reid and JJ in on their plans, and they informed their unit chief as well. JJ and Morgan had waited outside of Doyle's apartment before busting in and following him as he climbed up to the roof.

* * *

Hotch and JJ had gathered the team and gotten them all together.

 _"Everybody have a seat."_

 _"Why? What's going on?"_

 _"Everything all right?"_

 _"7 months ago, I made a decision that affect this team. As you all know, Emily had lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle. But the doctors were able to stabilize her. And she was airlifted from Boston to Bethesda under a covert exfiltration. Her identity was strictly need-to-know. And she stayed there until she was well enough to travel. She was reassigned to Paris where she was given several identities, none of which we had access to for her security."_

 _"She's alive?"_

 _"But we buried her."_

 _"As I said, I take full responsibility for the decision. If anyone has any issues, they should be directed toward me."_

 _"Any issues? Yeah, I got issues."_

 _"Oh my God."_

The team all looked to the doorway, where their friend Emily Prentiss was standing. They weren't exactly sure what they were more surprised about; the fact that their supposedly dead friend was standing in front of them, or the fact that their supposedly dead friend was sporting a very round and protruding baby bump.

"I am so sorry, I really am. Not a day went by that I didn't want to...Really, I-you didn't deserve that. And I'm so sorry. There's so much I want to tell you guys, and I will. I promise. But right now I really need to know what's going on with Declan."

Emily hugged the different members of the team, her belly pressing against their stomachs as they embraced. But no one was quite sure about how to ask about the most obvious aspect of Emily's return.

"Emily, was there a man living at the house?"

"Yes, my friend Tom Koehler. He was raising Declan as his own."

"I never saw him go in or out of that house. Where is he?"

"He was on assignment overseas."

"But he's all right?"

"Yes, he's on his way back now."

"He got a call from Declan, he called me, and when I landed, Hotch told me that you had Doyle in custody."

"And because of Tom's line of work, that's why you enrolled Declan in boarding school."

"I made sure that he, Louise, and I were the only ones allowed to take him off campus."

"Louise took him home last night because he was sick. Food poisoning."

"Yeah, a few of the kids had it apparently."

"So whoever did this got to him on campus. They knew they only had one chance. Current suspect is Richard Gerace. He's the most recent arrival into the states. We've been tracking his progress through the city, but we came up empty. But we know it's him because he has the scar."

"That doesn't make sense. Gerace gave up on Doyle a long time ago."

"He said you were the only one who knew Gerace."

"Which is why I'm pretty sure he doesn't have the balls to pull this off."

* * *

Emily, Reid and Ian were in the helicopter, on their way to attempt and stop Lachlan and Chloe from leaving the country with Declan. The majority of the ride had been silent, until Ian looked over at Emily. "That's my baby, isn't it?"

"Ian."

"It has to be. You're what, six months pregnant? The time matches up perfectly."

"I would prefer not to discuss this right now." Emily responded as she felt the tiny kicks of the baby inside of her. She rubbed her lower stomach softly to try and calm the child down, and glanced at Reid, who just looked at them both in confusion.

Once they landed, Emily and Reid helped Doyle out of the helicopter. They stood there as they waited for Lachlan and Chloe to emerge from the plane. Lachlan was the one to come out first, dragging Declan down the stairs with him. "Get over there, boy." He told Declan, not caring that he was being rough with the twelve year old.

"Bring Doyle here! I want him on his knees!" Lachlan yelled, and Emily and Reid led Ian closer to him. Emily immediately began to feel better as she saw Declan, alive and walking toward her, and for a second since she had left months ago, she wasn't completely worried.

"Now hand him over."

Chloe emerged from the plane, and Emily looked up as soon as she saw movement. "Gun!" Morgan shouted, and once Emily saw where Declan's mom was aiming her gun, she didn't have much time to think or debate her actions. She pushed Ian out of the way and jumped in front of him. It was less than a second later that the bullet from Chloe's gun had hit her, and a bullet from Morgan's gun had hit Chloe.


	2. Chapter 2

_"I need a medic!"_

 _"Emily?"_

 _"Em, are you alright?"_

 _"Prentiss, can you hear me?"_

 _"Emily?"_

She could hear the voices. She could even make out who those voices belonged to. Derek. Ian. Reid. Hotch. Declan. She had heard several more gunshots before she started hearing the voices. It had been only a matter of seconds since she had been shot, but it felt like hours. She was down on the ground, and Ian was behind her. Declan had run over to her the second that Derek shot McDermott, and he was kneeling at her side, making sure that he was okay. The twelve year old had been through enough that day; he didn't want to lose Emily. He couldn't lose Emily.

Emily sat up once she had finally begun to grasp reality. Her head was pounding something fierce, and she had the worst pain in her chest. She glanced down and realized that that was where the bullet had hit her. Luckily she had had her Kevlar vest on. Without it, she probably would have been dead. For real this time. But because of it, she would be fine. She'd have some nasty bruising, but she would be fine.

She started to hear the sirens around her, and she frowned as she felt her head start to pound even harder. She had hit her head when she fell to the ground, but that was the least of her worries at the moment. It wasn't until she started to feel the soft kicks of her sweet baby that she felt okay.

"Emily? Em, I need you to look at me." Derek kneeled down next to his partner, his eyes meeting hers once she looked up at him. "We're gonna get you to the hospital, okay?"

A million thoughts were running through Emily's head. She was thinking about Ian and Declan and the baby. She was thinking about what was going to happen to Ian and where Declan was going to go and if her baby was okay. She was thinking about absolutely everything. But when Derek spoke to her, her response shocked the hell out of everyone around her.

"I need Ian to go with me."

Ian and every member of the team looked at Emily as if she had three heads. "Emily, what the hell are you talking about? You're in shock."

The brunette shook her head as she looked her partner dead in the eyes. "No, I'm not. I need Ian to go with me. I want someone to bring Declan to the hospital to meet us there but I need Ian to ride in the ambulance with me."

Every member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit thought that Emily was absolutely out of her mind. But no one could argue with her at this point in time. They knew that Ian couldn't just go free; he had to go back to prison to serve his time. But if what Emily believed she needed right now was Doyle, then they were going to let her have him.

The ambulances got there quickly, and paramedics began to take away the dead bodies of Lachlan McDermott and Chloe Donaghy. Hotch had led a hysterical Declan back to an SUV, promising the boy that they were going to take him straight to the hospital and that he could see Emily as soon as he was allowed. Two paramedics helped the pregnant woman onto a stretcher, and they took her blood pressure and checked her pulse. After they loaded her into the ambulance, Ian climbed in, his hands still handcuffed. Once the doors shut as her team was out of ear shot, the Irish man began to ask what he had been wondering since he saw the mother of his child pull out her gun.

"Why in the hell did you do that?"

And the sad part was, Emily didn't really have an answer. She hadn't quite had time to think before she pushed Ian down and jumped in front of the bullet. She acted out of instinct. She acted by what had first popped into her head. And she still wasn't quite sure about why she had down it.

Sure, the man had stabbed her in the abdomen with a table leg. But their relationship previously hadn't been full of sunshine and rainbows. Ian hitting her wasn't something that she wasn't used to. And that night, she had really pissed him off. She had taken Declan away from him, led him to believe that he had been dead all these years, and then dropped the bomb on him that he was alive and that she wouldn't ever tell him where he was. Of course she wasn't trying to justify what he had done, but it hadn't been completely his fault.

After not getting an answer to his question, Ian let out a small sigh and decided to ask another one. He decided that now, when she wasn't surrounded by a member of her team, was the right time to try and bring up the subject again.

"Is it mine?"

* * *

 _"Let me out of these."_

 _"That's not how it went."_

 _"I can't make you happy in handcuffs."_

 _To her surprise, he hadn't completely rejected her. She knew that her attempt was one that would most likely be shot down fairly quickly, but she still opted to try. And it proved to be worth it. It didn't take long before they were back to where they were eight years ago, in each other's arms and unable to get the other's clothes off quick enough._

 _And to her surprise, she enjoyed it. She wasn't completely disgusted by sleeping with Ian Doyle. In some sick, twisted way, she actually missed it. She felt right with him, just as she had eight years ago. All of those inappropriate feelings that she had had for him came flooding back at that moment._

 _From the minute that she had found out that she was pregnant, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about him. She knew that it was completely and utterly fucked up, especially after what he had done to her. And she knew that it wasn't really her fault, but she knew that her actions were what forced him to do that. If she hadn't betrayed him, he would never have had to act the way that he did._

* * *

Emily lifted her head to look at the man in front of her. She glanced down at her big bump before looking back up at Ian. "Yes. It's yours."


End file.
